Arctic endured year of record heat as climate scientists warn of ‘winter being redefined’

🚨 What if evolution is the ”law”… and networks are the machines that do the work? In this paper (just published) I try to formalize how living systems are non-equilibrium, information-processing, adaptive matter. With a great biological flavor! 🧪🌐🌍🧬🦠 👉 iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1... 🧵 1/

We have a PhD studentship available starting in October 2026. Investigating climate change heat stress impacts on maternal and child health. Get in touch if you have questions! www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

Wow, this is a very impressive embryo model. "What sets the model described in this study apart from other embryo models is its ability to continuously mimic primate development from pre-implantation through to late gastrulation." (Nice, @amartinezarias.bsky.social!) www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Latest preprint with @hairyllama.bsky.social and @evol-molly.bsky.social This is a program that helps calculate several phylogenetic support measures.

Please help! We are looking for tissue-specific RNA-seq datasets or pubs with both male and female individual gene expression data, not pooled, from animal species. If you know of any relevant resources, please drop a link in the comments or send me a DM. Also, please help spread the word - thanks!

Paper out by the sensational @haideetinning.bsky.social and @niamhforde.bsky.social and co-authors. A conceptus-derived and highly conserved protein “PDI” alters function of endometrium to facilitate early preg events in mammals with different early preg phenotypes. academic.oup.com/biolreprod/a...

Our latest, led by the inimitable Chris Kay "Dated gene duplications elucidate the evolutionary assembly of eukaryotes" in which we used gene duplications to test hypotheses of eukaryogenesis. TLDR? They're all wrong. With @tweethinking.bsky.social @anya1.bsky.social @ssolo.bsky.social Davide Pisani

New editor's spotlights to highlight some of the exciting work we see at #MGen, getting kicked off by @bjesseshapiro.bsky.social diving into the latest work from @sylvainbrisse.bsky.social et al 🔍 vaccine impacts on non-target species! #MicroSky #MicrobiomeSky #IDSky #MedSky #evobio #clinmicro 💻🧬 🧪

Sharma & Kumar present the Net Bootstrap Support (NBS) approach that accounts for phylogenetic variation in the estimates of bootstrap confidence. 🔗 doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msaf296 #evobio #molbio #phylogenetics

How to keep in step when your (protein) partner speeds up… Here we investigated the adaptive remodeling of a protein-protein interaction surface essential for telomere protection. Congrats to whole team! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

i’m not crying you’re crying xkcd: Fifteen Years

Povilus et al. examined DNA methylation and genetic imprinting in water lily species, finding that maternal gene expression and parent-specific DNA methylation in the endosperm likely represent the ancestral condition of seed development. 🔗 doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msaf271 #evobio #molbio #PlantSky

Happy to present TOGA2, developed by Yury Malovichko @ymalovichko.bsky.social, the faster, memory-efficient & more accurate TOGA1 successor (github.com/hillerlab/TO...). And annotations, orthologs & gene loss/dup data generated with 4 references for 883 placental mammal and with 5 refs for 676 ...

Latest work out today in @currentbiology.bsky.social We find the fly development gene bicoid is much older than previously thought (~20 million yrs older!) 🪰🧬 To pinpoint its origins we tackled the Diptera phylogeny, providing some resolution (many open questions remain). 🔗 tinyurl.com/2vyuevpy

Narwhals (Monodon monoceros) are called the unicorn of the sea — for obvious reasons. This illustration by Louis A. Sargent comes from "The wild beasts of the world", v. 2 (1909), contributed to BHL by @uoftlibraries.bsky.social: www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/19657038 #SciArt #ILoveBHL 🧪 📖 🌊

A series of before/after satellite images comparing areas of high ecological importance in the Caspian Sea tell the story of 20 years of falling water levels. The Caspian is rapidly heading towards severe consequences for biodiversity and people living in the region. goodmanlab.org/2025/11/22/t...

In a new MBE Perspective, @jomcinerney.bsky.social introduces the concepts of epaktovars and xenotypes, providing a framework for describing phenotypic convergence and shared genetic material resulting from gene transfer across diverse lineages. 🔗 doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msaf279 #evobio #molbio

🚨🦜🐧Cover reveal! Thrilled to show off the cover of my upcoming book: The Story of Birds! Coming April 28. The whole history of birds, from their dinosaur origins to colossal extinct penguins & terror birds, to the 10,000+ species today. From @marinerbooks.bsky.social Preorder 👇

Fast females, slow males: accelerated ageing and reproductive senescence in Drosophila melanogaster females across diverse social environments url: academic.oup.com/evlett/artic...

HipHipHorray for a fabulous first day… at the University of Manchester!:) excited for the future and looking forward to some wonderful sciencing together !:) once I find my way through all my boxes lol

#Evolution of complex adaptations can involve changes in multiple traits that lack standalone function. @benitoexplains.bsky.social &co show that leaf masquerade in #katydids evolved via concurrent modification in wing colour & shape, driven by evolutionary synergy @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/4oUE741

Coming through! Important ptarmigan stuff to do! #birds 🌿

Life-changing eye implant helps blind patients read again. 🧪 www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Working from home works for everyone 🧪 #Zoom

MicroRNAs at the centre of this success story for treatment of Huntington’s disease.. truly wonderful and inspiring progress. Well done to all involved : www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

🧪microRNA treatment success for Huntington's disease announced. It sounds promising but hasn't published yet. Will it pass the peer-review sniff test? Will it get licensed in the US in 2026? Also, how did it take this long for me to realize BBC doesn't use the Oxford comma?

There are two weeks to go in the fundraising campaign for the Natural History Society of Maryland's new shark science and conservation exhibit, and we have to raise about $1,400 more. Please consider chipping in to help. Thank you! www.southernfriedscience.com/help-support... #SciComm 🧪🦑🌎

Grad school is HARD. Feels like everyone else has it together—but newsflash: everyone struggles, even your PI! These faculty interviews discussing their grad school struggles made me feel less alone. Share these with your cohort and be nicer to yourself 🧪🌿🎓 risecenter.asu.edu/fail-safe

It’s almost Ctenophore Day! I set up a BioBlitz on @inaturalist.bsky.social to celebrate. Spread the word, and let’s see how many people we can get out looking for ctenos! 🐙🦑🌿🧪 www.inaturalist.org/projects/cte...

How location drives productivity #Science "Life scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology publish top research papers at a rate that is among the highest in the world" www.science.org/content/arti...

Launching soon! R for Biochemists 101 begins on Monday 8 September 2025. Don’t miss your chance to boost your data skills and gain confidence in R. Secure your place today🧪 : buff.ly/cyJve1t

En Route to ESEB. @eseb2025.bsky.social .. Looking forward to a week chocka block with wonderful people and science ! Dont be shy - just come say hi !;-)

I have arrived in Barcelona for ESEB 2025! I will be talking about microRNA and the evolution of the mammalian placenta on Tuesday at 14:30 in Meeting Room 113 @eseb2025.bsky.social

Lots of invaluable advice here for both early stage researchers and well established folk. Well thought out impactful figures are key to getting your points across, and it's all too common to see poor practice 🧪🧬🖥️🌍 #datavis #bioinformatics www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Birds have an excellent ability to learn to discriminate harmless insects from those that they mimic on the basis of subtle differences in appearance, according to a study in Nature. go.nature.com/44yj4M5 🧪

Take a look at our work on miRNAs and their involvement with placental phenotypes. It's great to see this work finally see the light of day - huge thanks to everyone involved with the manuscript.

When you see convergent phenotypes do u wonder about their genetic basis? Did they re-invent some genetic element to construct the phenotype? The mammal placenta-a pretty important organ-has a lot of convergent phenotypes & this paper helps explain how they come about www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Happy to have contributed to this paper!!! Convergent placental phenotypes are mechanistically shaped by the same regulators

How did mammal placental diversity evolve? miRNAs play a significant role - indeed their repertoire is predictive of phenotype. Congrats to all: esp 1st author @jfennbio.bsky.social & all in @niamhforde.bsky.social group. Thanks to @ukri.org and @leverhulme.ac.uk. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

How did mammal placental diversity evolve? miRNAs play a significant role - indeed their repertoire is predictive of phenotype. Congrats to all: esp 1st author @jfennbio.bsky.social & @niamhforde.bsky.social group. Thanks to funders @BBSRC and @LeverhulmeTrust. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Antarctic seal numbers falling drastically due to melting sea ice, research shows

The Trust is proud to support twenty-five retired academics to complete their research. Topics covered this year include the role of salience in cognitive control and aggression, and marginal Nepali Dalit literature. www.leverhulme.ac.uk/news/twenty-...

R.I.P. Ted Goslow, a great functional morphologist. He contributed quite a bit to our understanding of how birds coordinate flying-- scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=e... www.online-tribute.com/TedGoslow

Divergent paths, convergent heads: morphological adaptation of head shape to ecological niches in snakes. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.05.17.654544v1

Geophysicist and seismologist Inge Lehmann was born #OTD in 1888. In 1936 she discovered the existence of a solid core at the center of the Earth, based on a careful analysis of global seismic records from a 1929 earthquake near New Zealand. 🧪 👩‍🔬 Image: Royal Danish Library

📝 New Publication 🧪 Congratulations to team members Richard Taylor and Dan Macqueen for their paper exploring the functional and evolutionary outcomes of whole genome duplication using single cell transcriptomics! @genomebiolevol.bsky.social #WGDip academic.oup.com/gbe/advance-...

#DataViz on #DNA methylation and ageing patterns in native Tibetans! 🧬🧪 #science 🏺 #anthropology #biology

“The genes of male and female placentas have marked differences in how they are expressed” #placenta #ReproSky 🧪 #Development medicalxpress.com/news/2025-05...

Learn about how unconventional models help to push #biomedicine at EMBO Workshop "Beyond the standard: Unconventional vertebrate models in biomedicine" in Edinburgh, United Kingdom, 9–13 June 2025 Registration deadline: 8 May meetings.embo.org/event/25-ver... #EMBOvertrebateModels #EMBOevents 🧪